REVISION OF THE BRIEF VISUOSPATIAL MEMORY TEST - STUDIES OF NORMAL PERFORMANCE, RELIABILITY, AND VALIDITY

There is an increasing demand for alternate-form neuropsychological te sts that can be used in clinical trials with little risk of direct pra ctice effect. Although the Brief Visuospatial Memory Test (BVMT) inclu des six equivalent alternate forms, its administration is limited to a n immediate and 25-min delayed free-recall trial. We now present a rev ised version of the BVMT called the Brief Visuospatial Memory Test-Rev ised (BVMT-R) that includes three learning trials, a 25-min delayed re call trial, and a delayed yes/no recognition task. A new scoring syste m, which accounts for the location of test stimuli as well as the accu racy of recall, is also introduced. Using these new administration and scoring procedures, we administered the BVMT-R to 261 neuropsychiatri c patients and 456 normal healthy adults. The results indicated that t he test has excellent interform reliability, and the construct and cri terion-related validity of the test were supported in studies using cl inical samples. Although the BVMT-R is not without its limitations, th e test's brevity and alternate-form capacity make it a valuable instru ment for serial neuropsychological assessments.